BIM for maintenance: smart… or not?
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The use of “smart” BIM for O&M meets practical “dumb” challenges, especially in the Chinese market where maintenance practices are not well established. Useful lessons can however be learnt from experience and standards used in the industry. A project role must be created for O&M data preparation, first to define specifications, formats, schedules before major equipment contracts are signed, then to follow up data preparation activities during construction. As far as software is concerned, a practical advice is to avoid conflicts with project teams and software vendors: instead, an O&M layer added onto the BIM model can provide the necessary support. Examples of projects in environmental utilities and buildings in mainland China and Hongkong are...
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